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Sounds far away?
Not really. Every year, deserving nominations for the grade of IEEE
Fellow fail to make the deadline. I encourage you to nominate a
deserving colleague and begin the job of preparing the application
and lining up references now. Nominating forms, detailed instructions,
and frequently asked questions can be found at the IEEE Fellow Program
Web Site at www.ieee.org/fellows.
To be nominated, the candidate must meet the following three basic
qualifications: hold Senior Member grade at the time the nomination
is submitted; be an ‘active’ member (that is, dues must
be current); and must have completed five years of service in any
grade of IEEE membership. Note: IEEE affiliate membership within
an IEEE society does not apply. I’m often shocked to learn
that folks who have made significant contributions to our Society
aren’t even Senior Members. It only takes a few minutes to
prepare an application to be a Senior Member and it is web based.
A nomination must be supported by at least five, but no more than
eight references from active IEEE Fellows. A list of IEEE Fellows
can be found at the IEEE Fellow Program Web Site or in the current
IEEE Membership Directory. In addition, a Fellow Nomination Resource
Center (FNRC) has been established. The purpose of the Center is
to assist nominators in locating the required number of references
to support a nomination to IEEE Fellow Grade. The Center will operate
on an experimental basis for a 3-year period. It is a volunteer
support group comprised of a Chair and Case Managers, all of whom
must be IEEE Fellow grade members. Nominators wishing assistance
from the FNRC must initiate a request by sending an e-mail to FNRC@ieee.org.
This year we expect the IEEE Electronic Fellow Nomination Process
to be fully implemented, which will make it even easier for you
to complete the nomination form. The completed nomination form is
automatically forwarded to references.
Last year was my first year as Chair of the NPSS Fellow Evaluation
Committee (FEC). And what a year it was! We had 19 nominations from
NPSS, an all time high. This meant a lot of work for the FEC and
hopefully NPSS will have many new fellows announced at the Board
of Directors meeting in December. I want to thank the FEC for all
their efforts. They are: Randy Brill, Victor Granatstein, Osamu
Ishihara, George Miley, Paul Phelps, Stan Schriber, Jim Schwank,
and Peter Turchi.
The IEEE Board of Directors recently approved changes to the process
for nominating and electing IEEE members to Fellow Grade. The goal
of these changes is to increase the number of nominations received
for members from industry and to make the process more receptive
to nominations received for application engineers or engineering
practitioners who have made contributions of unusual distinction
to the profession. Specifically the changes established a new nomination
category for individual contributions, “Application Engineer/Practitioner.”
This category recognizes significant contributions in “product
development, advancement in system, application or operation, project
management or construction activity, process development, manufacturing
innovation, codes or standards development, or other application
of technology.”
Also, the existing designation, “Engineer/ Scientist”
was changed to, “Research Engineer/ Scientist.” The other
existing categories, “Educator” and "Technical Leader”
remain the same. So, the IEEE now recognizes contributions in four
distinct categories.
On behalf of the NPSS Fellows Evaluation Committee, I urge you to
consider making an IEEE Fellow nomination next year. March 1, 2006
will be here sooner than you think.
Peter S. Winokur, Chair, NPSS IEEE Fellow Candidate Evaluation
Committee, can be reached at the National Nuclear Security Administration,
Washington DC Office; Phone: +1 202 586-5480; E-mail: p.winokur@ieee.org.
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